Seagate rolls out self-encrypting hard drives

The company said that it would be equipping its new Savvio, Constellation and Cheetah lines with the ability to automatically encrypt their contents. The drives will primarily target the enterprise server space.

The new drives will encrypt data prior to being written on the platter, then decrypt prior to reading the stored contents, allowing the data to remain encrypted when data is at rest or when the drives themselves are physically removed from the system.

Seagate said that the encryption techniques and formats are supported by the Trusted Computing Group and should also support Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers standards for key management. The drives will also support new 6Gbit/s server boards.

Initially, the company said that it hopes to aim the device at industries with heavy compliance standards, such as medical care facilities and financial institutions. A recent study suggested that many companies are still struggling to find adequate security management systems for stored data.

The release of the new server drives comes just one day after Seagate announced news in the desktop space. The company said that its latest line of Serial ATA III drives would perform at speeds of up to 6Gbit/s.